18208: erzilidanto: I've noticed a pattern of FACTUAL innacuracies with Reuters (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

Dear Mr. Walton;

(Re: 18194:  Walton:  RE: 18182:  White:  Students: the latest victims
  of AP/Reuters on Corbett List - Mon, 2 Feb 2004 )

With reference to your recent intervention, on behalf of Reuters, listed on
the Corbett List, I am no expert like you, but from just the few half-truths,
misstatements and straight up fabrications I 've read from January 1, 2004
until now, I disagree and can’t possibly witness to Reuters professionalism in
VERIFYING its facts before unleashing it on the Haitian people and the world at
large.

What's opinion got to do with it? Reuters is a news service who is supposed
to be reporting FACTS, not opinions.

And, no, even when given the right information, they still are, for instance,
continuing with this pattern of rushing to identify Haitian victims of this
current unrest in Haiti as all "students" seemingly practicing their "civil
disobedience rights" in a democracy. And, identifying most of the ordinary
non-opposition Haitians, who have died in these demonstrations, who are perhaps
Fanmi Lavalas or with another populist organizations, as being "thugs" or
"chimeres."  Where's Reuters’ outcry and continual repetition of the news about the
torture, by Andre Apaid's mob, for instance, of Louvoi Petit?

Where's their "reporting" of the facts about the kidnapping of Maxime
Désalmour's body from his family for political purposes?

Where's Maxime Desalmour family's point of view?  Why was this family’s
chasing after the Apaid demonstrators to give back Maxime Desalmour  body so it
could be properly buried not newsworthy and subject to emphasis and repetition by
Reuters?

Why does AP and Reuters continue to repeat, over and over and over again, the
death of Renel Victor, the tear gas canister victim?

Why not also repeat Renel Victor was not a student?

Why not also repeat, over and over again, that Renel Victor, according to his
wife, Islande Gelin, was pro-lavalas.

Why not also directly or indirectly report Renel Victor was a non-opposition
demonstrator in Haiti, exercising his civil disobedience prerogatives, who
died in the course of fighting for his convictions towards democracy in Haiti?
Why not? Because he was Lavalas?

Why is Reuters, based on its reports on the Renel Victor and Louvoi Petit
cases alone, seem to be just concerned about the rights of the opposition in
Haiti’s democracy?

Why is Reuters not repeating over and over again that the head of the
minority opposition in Haiti, André Apaid, was among the first to rush to the
hospital to claim the body of Renel Victor, claiming the death of this "student"
proved the need for the elected government to resign when in FACT, Renel Victor,
was not a Apaid demonstrator?

Why is Reuters not reporting, over and over again that Andre Apaid and his
minority opposition group represents not more than 4% of the Haitian population?
Why are they slanting their reports to give the appearance or impression that
Andre Apaid’s minority opposition has credibility and has convinced the
Haitian population at large of its platform to oust Aristide before Aristide’s
5-year term is over?

Why are they also slanting their reports to make the unsuspecting U.S. public
believe that this minority opposition in Haiti somehow equals or is the
Haitian majority?

Why are they not reporting that the persistence of André Apaid and his
collaborators, in seeking to take power by violent or any macabre means (using
corpses, using university students, keeping grade-school children from getting an
education, inter alia) has already left too many victims in Haiti?

Why didn't Reuters interview Alina Sixto, a prominent Haitian American and a
Lavalas supporter who was affected by the opposition's violent activities in
Gonaive the week after the bi-centennial?

Where is Reuters’ reporting, repetition of the "facts," and, outcry for
Haitian-American, Alina Sixto and the burning, by the special interest opposition,
of her 87-year old mother’s house, her childhood home, in Gonaive? Where is
the U.S. State Department's outcry against said opposition for this lost and
suffering caused by mob’s aligned with Andre Apaid in Gonaive? Mobs, whose
illegal actions, put at risk an American citizen life and livelihood?

What? Is the State Department and the Bush administration waiting for a white
person to be injured by a Lavalas demonstrator before it finds its
conscience? Black American lives are not worthy? Especially if they are pro-Lavalas and
pro-democracy in Haiti?. Is that it?

Doesn't the fact that Haitians and Haitian-Americans send more than $850
million dollars, per year, to Haiti, deserve the same U.S-State Department
protection as the interests of big-businesses in Haiti, like Disney (made a profit of
$1.1 billion in 1994 in Haiti), or, Wal-Mart (made a profit of $2.681 billion
in Haiti in 1994 at the height of the ‘91-94 Coup D’etat)? Why aren't our
African-American investments part of USAID's,  IRI, NED, or the European Union's
development and democracy enhancement programs to be protected in Haiti? Are
our Black American livelihood and property interests in Haiti less worthy than
those of white people and businesses in Haiti? Is it because we
Haitian-Americans are not as wealthy as these big-businesses that our more than $850
million investment, per year, in Haiti, are unworthy of note to the U.S. State
Department policymakers sponsoring violent groups who are burning down our
relatives and parent's houses and businesses?

In sum, such devaluation of our Haitian humanity; our Black or African
American lives and livelihood, our Haitian efforts at building democracy in Haiti;
such disregard for the lives of the overwhelming Black majority of Haitians,
who have actually been the most to be victimized by this murderous, undemocratic
opposition's head-long foreign-sponsored surge for power in Haiti, at all
cost, is nothing if not reprehensible and un-American.

Further, why is Reuters and AP and Washington Post and the U.S. State
Department selectively alleging Haiti is unsafe, when compared to, in the time of the
U.S. supported Cedras dictatorship, at its height, you had at least 50 Fanmi
Lavalas bodies and FRAPH chopped-up faces littering Haitian street corners,
per week, compared to the 47 or so people, in total, who have been killed in
recent months due to the emboldening of this minority opposition partly due to
the financial support from the US and the credibility given to it by the
corporate press?

Whose life is unsafe here anyway? Whose life in Haiti are Reuters, AP,
Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the U.S. State Department wishing to
protect here?

If its partly to protect Haitian life, regardless of party affiliation, class
or Black skin tone, than why don’t Reuters do a story about the IRI, NED,
European Union, USAID and US-State Department’s financially and political support
of an opposition group in Haiti that, in recent months, has been practically
trafficking in stolen corpses, has accelerated its anti-education campaign
against Haiti's grade-school children; has publicly threatened these grade-school
children with reprisals if they should ignore its demonstrations and strikes
and instead attend school; has been associated with the deaths of at least 30
sick hospital patients because of doctors' strikes they’ve called affecting ou
r Haitian Hospitals; is about systematic lying to the international press as,
inter alia, evidenced by their January 1, 2004 exaggerated un-rest
fabrications; has advocated contempt for human rights and intolerance for members of
other parties besides itself; and has, for four years, simply refused to go to
elections?

What, pray tell, is worthy about this group that it deserve so much
US/Euro-power backing? Where is the evidence that this minority opposition in Haiti
stands for democracy in a better way than what Haitians already have? Where?
Where’s this crucial information? This irrefutable evidence?

I promise you, Mr. Walton, I can very the statements OF FACTS I've alleged
about the mainstream media's pattern of discrimination in Haiti. Especially with
the Renel Victor and Louvoi Petit cases alone. But if you want the larger
picture, if you want verification of the media spin Reuters is guilty of
perpetuating, you may start with,  my posts at
 http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1181#1181 ; or, beginning at
http://haitiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1144#1144 )

I'm no expert on the media. But the question is: Can Reuters justify its
slant and verify all its facts, as reported, since Jan 1, 2004, about Haiti?

Where is its systematic corrections, repeated in the same way its errors were
stated? Why is Reuters and the AP currently and almost daily submitting
their, I think,  racist,  and class-based-news-slants, opinions and outright
fabrications on Haiti to the world as "news"? Why?

Ezili Danto